Alligator blood may be our next source of new antibiotics

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The alligator is a solitary animal and quick to defend its territory when in close proximity to other alligators. This leads to some quite serious wounds being inflicted when they fight, but despite their bacteria-filled habitats, those wounds heal easily and quickly. That’s thanks to their awesome immune system, which researchers believe could lead to our next major antibiotics breakthrough.

The key to an alligator’s immune system is the enzymes contained in their blood combined with cationic antimicrobial peptides, or CAMPs for short. The enzymes alone are capable of dealing with 23 different types of bacteria as well as performing well against the HIV virus. However, if you add in the CAMPs found so far, alligators can fend off E.coli, sepsis, food poisoning, and skin infection bacteria.

In total 45 peptides have been identified so far from one type of alligator. The next step is to extend the blood analyzing to the wider crocodilian family to see if there are any variations in the immunity offered. There’s a chance new antimicrobial peptides could be found, which would potentially lead to new antibiotics.

New antibiotics are so difficult to identify because they are found in nature. First you have to discover the potential for one, isolate it, then get it to grow in lab conditions. Scientists managed that for the first time in 25 years recently when a new antibiotic was discovered in soil samples. Hopefully that can happen again by analyzing alligator or crocodile blood.